Cimetiere de Montmartre (Montmartre Cemetery), Paris

While Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris typically steals the show, Montmartre's cemetery offers equally impressive tombs and is just as picturesque. Sprawling at the foot of Montmartre, near the start of Rue Caulaincourt in Place Clichy, this cemetery spans across the hollow of an old quarry, below street level, with its entrance on Avenue Rachel beneath Rue Caulaincourt.

The cemetery epitomizes the artsy, quixotic, gentle, almost whimsical Paris that every visitor secretly longs for. As a popular tourist attraction, it is as captivating as Père-Lachaise and serves as the final resting place for many renowned artists who lived and worked in the Montmartre area.

Notable individuals interred here include painter and sculptor Edgar Degas, composer Hector Berlioz, filmmaker François Truffaut, singer-songwriter Jim Morrison, and writers Alexandre Dumas, Émile Zola, and Stendhal, among others. The Art Nouveau tomb of Émile Zola (1840–1902) presides over a lawn near the entrance, even though the novelist's remains were transferred to the Panthéon in 1908.

Tip:
Entry is free and a map is provided to help visitors locate various crypts/chapels. Step up to each of these to get a glimpse of stained glass windows and/or ornate interiors.